Category: Environment
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All-important soil
Much of the ongoing global extinction is taking place underground. Booming metropolises of biological production and exchange crumble in silence, at a rate of 75 billion tonnes per year. Soil, the most biologically diverse material on Earth, is a cornerstone of life driven to irrelevance by our mechanised understanding of nature. Soil feeds us, its…
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Remembering climate change adaptation
‘When people do not dread authorities, then a greater dread descends’. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is all too familiar with this feeling Laozi describes in his Taoist studies. Over the past month, everyone has been shocked by Working Group 1’s Assessment Report. The cataclysm is not only real; it’s within reach. Business…
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Blue pathways
Punctuated by heat, fires, and floods in all corners of the world, July 2021 exceeded all climate scientists’ models. Climate change is taking place at a faster and greater rate than previously envisaged. Perhaps less visible, but no less dramatic, are conditions off-land. Countless practices disturb our oceans today – overfishing, plastic disposal, deep sea…
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Europe’s plan for carbon border adjustment
One-third of European greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are embedded in the import of goods and services. While the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) sets a price and limit on carbon emissions for domestic firms, no such measure exists for products made abroad. Without better accountability of imported emissions, there will be no real industrial decarbonisation.…
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Towards a measurement of the trade-biodiversity nexus
Biodiversity degradation is an underevaluated knock-on effect of trade liberalisation. That’s because enhanced demand through free trade agreements (FTAs) increases land clearing, whether that be due to agriculture, mining, fishing or hydrocarbon extraction. Costs on climate, linked to energy-intensive industrial production and freight transport, are also enormous. Since 2019, opposition to the EU-Mercosur deal has…
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Four FoodTech Champions
Environmental awareness has grown exponentially since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreements. Each year, we become increasingly aware of a particular pressing issue. 2018 was the year of plastics, as images of beaches inundated the web, demonstrating the extent of our societies’ waste disposal inefficacy. In 2019, we watched the Amazon burn. What we fail to…
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Is sustainability the right path for cultured meat?
Above are pictures taken from JUST Meat’s promotional video, displaying what CEO Joshua Tetrick calls an out of body experience. Happy friends sat outside eating nuggets are joined by an unlikely member – Ian the chicken. Running around, Ian is unaware that they are eating him, or at least part of him. Such a scene…
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Lake Turkana wind farm – Kenya on a green road to 2022
President Kenyatta cuts the ribbon On 19th July, Kenya began full operation of its Lake Turkana wind farm in the arid Marsabit county, 545 kilometres north of Nairobi. Construction began in 2014, and since 2017 the plant had been operating at 64% of its capacity. 365 turbines and total power output of 310 megawatts make…
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Aviation’s carbon footprint – why Europe will push for a kerosene tax
An opportune moment – EU reconfiguration Environmental preoccupation is at the centre stage of European policy like never before. It fragmented the European Parliament on May 26th and has left unclear who will take on the presidency of the Commission. Many agree that Europe must sustain its global leadership on climate, while enhancing its action.…
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Combatting illegal fishing in West Africa – the potential of blockchain
Government ban on fishing On 1st April, a one-month ban on fishing and exportation by foreign fishing corporations came into effect in the small West African state of Sierra Leone. The aim is to prevent the exhaustion of fish stocks, caused by widespread Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. Estimates by the Sea Around Us…
VALUE IN NATURE 